For social emotions to be more considered and empowered
Project Introduction & Aim
Individuals should be treated equally regardless of their looks. However, society is still facing problems with enforcing beauty standards, racism, and the wealth often displayed through appearance. This project aims to raise awareness of discrimination based on body and appearance and highlight the social power to foster maturity in social cognition.
It will address this issue through a social art platform and a linked artefact that presents the current status through the data input. People can share experiences, raise these issues to the surface, and develop them into social discussions. Users would share their experiences and emotions regarding the discrimination they have encountered. These emotional data would be transferred into social artwork that expands to give voice to those facing social discrimination and lead to social changes.
How the system works
Data collection1: Gathering datasets regarding the experience of individuals who got discrimination of appearance and body.
Data collection2: Gather data on emotions evoked by this experience.
Visualisation: Visualise the emotional data and map them out on this platform as the media art that showcases what the status in our society of bias looks like.
Artefact transformation: Physical artefacts would be affected when these data are added up, and their form would change.
Creating discussions: There would be another section on the platform to create a healthy discussion to stop this discrimination and where people can communicate with each other, giving out solutions or help. Users can leave positive words and discuss how we should look at our body and appearance, like commenting on SNS.
Incorporating data again: The dataset of positive experiences created in the 5th process also comes into a visualisation to 3&4.
Representation: Visually show that our effort and shift in social perspective could make social justice and encourage and engage society to be a more welcoming place.
Emotional engagement: People will visually see the changes in the emotional map and artefacts in real-time through their answers.
Promoting social change: Represent the hurt and positive emotions existing at the same time to show the complexity of social issues and powers. We would encourage this awareness and growth of maturity to make society advanced.
Low-fy prototype for the platform / artefact design
Design of the Artefact
The physical artefact will be a tree composed of human body parts, eyes and vessels linked to it, representing our mindsets and visions. Tree trunks and branches will be composed of many tubes that look like vessels in the human body, and the liquid will flow inside these vessels. The movement of the liquid and the colour change according to the input data, and the flow of the liquid speed is affected to give intensity effects and show the data status.
Leaves are composed of many eyes (Eyes-Which are the tools to take in our memories and provide a sense to people that we are always watching) that also move around and blink with tense related to the data inputs.
Also, the robotic arm will present vibrant movement by moving the fabrics to unveil the tree to the trunk. The fabric would be covered up on the tree trunk with many layers, which are sheer (so that it can slightly show the light inside the tree). By the data input, the robotic arm will remove the fabrics from branches and layer them beside the trees, representing our society becoming a space where people can express their emotions freely, and we acknowledge the social discrimination and work to solve it together.
The leftover fabrics that were removed from the trees and formed beside them into another form would present the leftover discrimination and hurt emotions, but also give awareness that we should remember to keep our tree unveiled freely and shining itself, without covering up to hide from social discrimination. The robotic arm will move around and draw the emotional map with the fabrics surrounding the vision tree.
Design of Emotional MapThe visual graph of the platform would be curated to show the different kinds of datasets added up and form one emotional map. The datasets would be transferred to input assets, and these would merge, move and transform themselves to represent the social status and deliver the emotional status to viewers. The visual graph would be created by using Touch designer as a method of creation.
Proposed Outcome
These two visual and physical elements would be presented simultaneously to represent the social status regarding body discrimination. This would evoke more effective awareness and storytelling and encourage social participation and engagement to solve this issue.
Key Milestone
Initiation (Dec 24-Feb 25)
-Research and planning.
-Organise the structure of the project
-Decide on the tools and methods to use.
Development
Prototypes for gathering datasets.
-Users will put in sentences of their own experience
-They will also choose their emotion and the intensity they felt from that experience from the given choices.
-Analyse datasets system would be created using NLP(Natural language processing) in Python (NLTK Library).
-Develop the UI for taking in the data and also the best way to gather information.
Prototypes for real-time visualisation.
-The data analysed will be transferred to Touch Designer to be visualised.
-The real-time input of data will create the change in visualisation in Touch Designer.
-This created visual would be presented in the platform to show the people the emotional inputs and status
Prototypes for developing physical artefacts
-The artefact would be designed to represent the look of society and human emotion.
-The artefact would change accordingly to the platform status, for example, changes of colour flow in the artefact or the movement of the artefact to create a peaceful look, mixed status, and damaged condition, and also show the reconstruction of the damaged status if the positive inputs are more made.
-The artefacts would have physical computation attached to them to bring real-time changes
-The design would create alertness and erose emotional awakening.
Test Launch & Iterations
Test the launch by gathering data from people to participate.
- Verify if the real-time changes are made accurately.
- Check if the physical artefact is also moving accordingly.
- Assess if there are any issues in expanding the visual map.
- See when the positive data are input and whether they combine well with the existing emotions
- Iterations
Present
- Present the QR linking to the platform ( People can put their experiences & Contribute to improving society in real-time).
- Present the screen to showcase the visual emotion map on the platform.
- Present the physical artefacts that change according to the current status.
Social Purpose
This project addresses social issues, appearance-based judgement, and bias and brings the discussion to the surface of progress in the maturity of society. This will contribute to the long-term well-being of society and create the social value of understanding and accepting differences of all kinds. Also, by giving people the experience to participate in making social justice and better society, it will intrigue people’s mindsets and awareness as well as cultural knowledge and dynamics that would align with the social purpose of this fund.
Highlighting the severity of the problem and the deep discrimination that exists in society is essential, but also showing that this can be solved by our strength and the maturity of civic consciousness is the core element. People have strength, and we should all be more aware that to create the well-being of society, each individual’s attention and effort are crucial. This would start social change by creating awareness, interest, and discussion through artefacts and platforms.
In prototyping and testing processes, diverse experiences and opinions from various cultural, racial, and social backgrounds would be gathered and considered. The user experience and interface would be enhanced by taking opinions. The information-gathering process would be designed to be calm, welcoming and approachable to everyone regardless of their conditions. Also, there would be careful consideration in processing data and transforming datasets into movements that effectively deliver the emotion and message and not distort it in any sort.
For the development of the platform and artefact, the 3d modelling will be done first-hand to minimise the resource waste and risk of failure. Also, in the prototyping process, the reused materials that are available would be used first-hand, and also for the outcome reusable materials would be considered primary.
The project will not only engage with users to be contributors to producing and changing this artwork but also inspire people by transforming their personal emotions and experiences into visuals and healing through social interaction. This will make them understand the emotional outbursts that they have in their heart, as well as believe in society again.
Innovative approach
Focusing on discrimination and bias, which are essential issues to be addressed in society, and transferring them as the artwork to showcase social emotions is done in this project. This approach leads to social empathy and a movement for improvement. Also, mixing physical computing into this artwork will produce more intensive and real-time user interaction. It suggests a new form of integrating social issues into art and technology, which presents a fresh and vibrant way of presenting and communicating, leading to compelling storytelling.
This can expand to a broader university level that would present as a starting point for bringing individuals into social changes that can widely engage people and create positive discussion and development. Also, taking physical computing in artwork shows how computers and humans can interact emotionally and help understand and relate to the artwork more closely, which could be further developed for using art to make a better society and build our emotional engagements.
To track that the data is transferred accordingly, the test release process and prototypes should be done accurately. I will track data individually to see if they are put accurately during the test procedure. Testing different kinds of inputs and identifying if any element has potential error or inaccuracy that needs to be fixed would be done. Also, getting the user feedback and their opinions on this platform and the artwork would be done to develop it as the most comfortable platform.
The main difficulty in the process would be how effectively it can present visually the data of emotions accurately and deliver that emotional feeling to viewers. The data analysis should be considered precisely and sensitively, and different methods should be tried to present them visually. Also, transferring this visual output into another signal to make the artefact move and change could be another challenge. For this, diverse prototypes and iterations would be done to present the most appealing and precise outcome.
Also, to deliver to people that sharing their experiences and opinions would be perfectly anonymous and transferred to data that would not store the original input into the system would be necessary. Transferring data anonymously immediately when input is made and not getting personal information would be done to the system. By this, participants can genuinely participate in producing this artwork in real time without faking their emotions or being reluctant to participate.